iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

alex @alexbull.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

i just wanna stop hearing about it man. and no matter what i say or do i can't stop that or change the way its affected how i see the world and the art i love. it makes me genuinely profoundly sad whenever i think about it and i don't even have to say what it is

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Reposted by max turnbull

imagine being an established art team at an award winning studio and one day they trot in a guy who cheerfully says he's gonna Implant AI Tools Into Your Existing Workflow and Build an AI Art Pipeline. no matter how professional they remain, with craft gone your art team is gonna mentally check out

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i think emulators are kinda beautiful in the way of explicitly creating a way for a piece of hardware to connect with another piece of hardware and i think decompiled PC ports of old games loses that beautiful context is this just an oldhead opinion

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its been really hard to watch all the studios that inspired me to become a game developer either struggle or completely disappear games industry's a pile of wank

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Zach Soares @voxels.ca · 11/09/2026

"bluesky is too much politics and not enough whimsy" brother just POST the whimsy and follow people who wax whimsical people have forgotten you can just do the thing

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I'm available for work! - Characters - Rigging and Animations - Environments Art I've worked on Teardown, Vampire Crawlers, Moonglow Bay and many more! Feel free to DM me or email zachary.soares@zsinked.com

Teardown Marketing screenshot showcasing the second level of the Relics of Barkuna DLC.

Vampire Crawlers screenshot from within the library. Environment art can be seen with the array of bookshelves and props

Moonglow Bay selfies screenshot from the main character. Soft and light art style

A screenshot from On The Nose, interrogating our first suspect Mr. Deerest.

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Jenna "the" Yow @jannouna.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

So with the news of the layoffs at KO_OP, I'm officially looking for work later this fall. I'm an experienced narrative designer that's worked on both sprawling open world stories and intimate cinematic narratives, even netting some award wins and noms. More details on my experience below!

key art for Goodbye Volcano High by KO_OP

key art for Spirit Swap by Soft Not Weak

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max turnbull @max.please.rest · 16/09/2026

me when i bought £30 on habbo credits with my mum's nokia

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max turnbull @max.please.rest · 16/09/2026

i'm almost certainly gonna get a persona tattoo at some point which is a bummer

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KO_OP: 🪐 Wishlist Young Suns on Steam! @ko-op.com · 13/09/2026

You can wishlist our woke gay space game on Steam right now and help support a queer- and trans-run democratically operated studio!! 🫶🏼 hi.youngsuns.com/Steam

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max turnbull @max.please.rest · 13/09/2026

"you should read dungeon crawler carl" bro i was raised on .hack// you need to back the fuck up

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charlit ⭐️wishlist YS on steam 🪐 @charlit.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

So sad to go but so grateful for the opportunity 🫶 I love the team sooooo much and hope to get a chance to work together again in the future! Our ko-working era may be ending, but the gifs will live on forever ✊

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im rob @bobacupcake.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

the team at ko_op were some of the most talented and passionate people ive ever had the pleasure to work with. if you are able please show everyone affected whatever support you can

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Jenna "the" Yow @jannouna.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Hi! I'm Jenna, a narrative designer and illustrator over at @ko-op.com for our new game Young Suns, an optimistic space-faring life sim. I work with some of the coolest people in games and I can't wait to show you what we've been working on.

the key art for young suns!!!! our new game!!! it's beautiful and ellen alsop drew it!!!!

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there are tens of thousands of game devs who found an audience for their game, and subsequently made their living, by posting in-progress screenshots and videos so. that's dead now! good work all

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ellen 🌻 alsop @spaceellien.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

ellen is a genuinely unbelievable artistic talent who was an enormous inspiration even long before i started at ko_op, and i feel extremely fortunate to have been able to work with her while at ko_op. so good so talented so sweet

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Sadly I’m one of the affected members. I love KO_OP and it’s hard to imagine working anywhere else. Manifesting that they get a pitch funded soon so that the studio can keep going strong. Please play Young Suns when it hits steam! If anyone has a concept/2d artist gig after Dec, please let me know!

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noé @celechii.itch.io · 10/09/2026

when i tell you the JOY i experienced when i found out i was joining ko_op at the same time (on the same day!!) as noé after working with them for the last 4 years i can tell you that anywhere they go from here will be lucky to have them. they learn SO so fast its astonishing, an actual rising star

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i'll be looking for work again sometime in the winter once i've recovered from some post launch burnout, but in the meantime i'll be spending time indulging my tooling brainworms, releasing my RNG package, learning godot and other tools, and writing blogs about the super cool systems i built for YS

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noé @celechii.itch.io · 10/09/2026

so sad to say i'm one of the devs affected by this and am leaving at the end of the month i've had an absolutely incredible time at ko_op helping ship our 3 most recent games over the 4 years i've been here. i love all my coworkers and hope that things improve and we get to work together again soon

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it's daniel @dkmode.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

if you want someone who learns quickly, knows their way around a jira board, stays calm in a crisis, and cares a lot about the people around them, i'm your guy! mostly looking for production but would be open to going back to qa if the opportunity was right.

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it's daniel @dkmode.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

i've been in the games industry for 10+ years and specialize in small teams (10-30 people is my sweet spot). i can confidently say i am a best-in-class qa, and will get there as a producer with a bit more time and experience. i love to be the "grease" on a team and make everyone else's jobs easier.

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for what its worth I think daniel is being very modest here and can vouch for him being a fantastic producer for the last few years on young suns! but yes was also truly great doing QA excellent communicator and someone you can count on to keep on top of things

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just since folks are asking-- i was not affected by the layoffs at ko_op but a bunch of extremely talented and wonderful people were. please look out for their LFW posts, i'll be sharing any as soon as they're posted

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Jenna "the" Yow @jannouna.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

if you're a studio and you're in need of a narrative designer you should be firing up your engines to hire jenna as soon as they're available do NOT miss out

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Reposted by max turnbull

Also, please play Young Suns when it comes to Steam. I've worked on that game for over 3 years and poured so much of myself and my interests into the writing and worldbuilding of it. We (the workers) genuinely benefit from every Steam sale we make!

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KO_OP: 🪐 Wishlist Young Suns on Steam! @ko-op.com · 10/09/2026

An important update from KO_OP.

With great sadness and respect, over the next few months KO_OP will be saying goodbye to 13 members of our team. This decision was made to ensure the survival of the studio, and we deeply regret its necessity and the negative impact on our colleagues’ lives.

KO_OP has been making games for nearly a decade and a half, and our project funding has primarily come from publishers and platform partners. The games funding landscape has changed radically over the last few years, and unlike previous project cycles, this time we have been unable to secure funding for new projects while developing our current engagements.

As with all our company's operational decisions, this one was made democratically, and was motivated by the survival of the studio rather than maximizing profits. Our members are regularly updated on our cash flow situation, and were made aware of this upcoming shortfall well in advance. Membership then appointed a group to plan for this eventuality, and ratified their recommendations. Team leads and our elected executives will also be impacted by these reductions. We believe this level of transparency and accountability ought to be a minimum requirement for all organizations.

Young Suns will be reaching new platforms, with new content and features. We're all tremendously proud of it, and hope it will find its audience. Our bylaws ensure that any profits from Young Suns will still be shared with impacted team members. Our goal now is to develop new game concepts and prototypes while continuing to support Young Suns. In the event that we secure funding in the coming months, our intent is to rehire as many of our colleagues as possible.

In the coming days we will be sharing a list of impacted workers in the hopes of helping them find new work. We thank you for your support.

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max turnbull @max.please.rest · 09/09/2026

its funny how fast gamers went from "please any scrap of a new metroid" to "ugh more metroid"

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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I don’t believe AI will kill us all. But I do believe it can make all our lives worse, which has already started to come into effect, and it’s clear that the people behind the technology don’t care at all about the human cost.

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max turnbull @max.please.rest · 09/09/2026

nintendo are so lucky i love kirby

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max turnbull @max.please.rest · 09/09/2026

oh i forgot there was a direct on oops. did i miss anything good

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if they showed this trailer first i genuinely think nobody would've complained

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i genuinely think its very smart to put all the modern achivement dailies slop in a separate phone app and keep the ocarina of time experience as pure as possible

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"in this game, time marches on, no matter where you are" fuckin too right man .. this game called life .....

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castle town looks fire bro i'm fully back

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anyaustin's video about the things you can see from different parts of ocarina of time is gonna be a lot more boring

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new ocarina of time is already winning me over tbh the fucking power that nintendo has over me is unbelievable

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